The Criminal Justice Response to Policy Interventions: Evidence from Immigration Reform
研究了1986年移民改革与控制法案（IRCA）如何改变警察逮捕和起诉行为，从而干扰对政策效果的估计，对评估移民政策对犯罪影响的研究者有用。
Changes in the treatment of individuals by the criminal justice system following a policy intervention may bias estimates of the effects of the intervention on underlying criminal activity. We explore the importance of such changes in the context of the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 (IRCA). Using administrative data from San Antonio, Texas, we examine variation across neighborhoods and ethnicities in police arrests and in the rate at which those arrests are prosecuted. We find that changes in police behavior around IRCA confound estimates of the effects of the policy and its restrictions on employment on criminal activity.